quotes

on Beast, People, Gods

THE PARAGON OF ANIMALS

What a piece of work is man!
How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!
In form and moving how express and admirable!
In action how like an angel!
In apprehension how like a god!
The beauty of the world!
The paragon of animals!

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Hamlet
in: Shakespeare’s Hamlet

DROPPING THE ANIMAL

Love is divine, lust is animal - and man hangs between the two. Whatsoever he knows as love is a mixture of lust and love; something of the animal and something of the divine. Hence man remains very confused about love, about what exactly it is...
My effort is to make you aware that love can manifest in both ways: as lust, as animal desire - then it is possessiveness, jealousy, then it is a subtle effort to dominate the other, exploit the other; or it can express itself as divine - then it is pure fragrance, prayer. One has to be very aware not to get these two things mixed. And one has to constantly move onwards so that the animal is left behind.
Slowly slowly a point comes, a point of no-return, from where the animal disappears, it does not follow you anymore. That is the moment of ‘samadhi’, ‘satori’, enlightenment. Then all that you are is purely divine, godly. But love is the door, love is the energy to be transformed. Love is the only energy available to man. Through it you can fall, through it you can rise. It is like a staircase: you can go downwards, you can go upwards. The same staircase can used in both possible ways; it depends on how you use it.
Love is a great art. The art consists in dropping the animal more and more and evolving divine consciousness in your being.